Hero
by ALF
Summary: Souta learns the meaning of what a true hero is.


_HERO_

An _Inuyasha_ fanfic by ALF, November 2005

DISCLAIMER: Based on the manga/anime series _Inuyasha_ by Rumiko Takahashi and affiliates, written without permission. I make no profit from this story.

* * *

The very first memory I've ever had was of my father. The image was very vague and fuzzy, but I think...I think he was smiling down at me. Something, a lamp or whatever, shone brightly behind him, making his eyes, his skin, his smile seem to almost glow, as though he were something above human. 

He looked so cool.

Dad, therefore, was my very first hero. I wanted to grow up to be just like him.

That was, until he left. I guess it was while Nee-chan and I slept one night. I woke up that next morning to Mama sobbing in the kitchen. She was clutching a note in her hands, her hair disheveled and her eyes and cheeks red from crying.

I remember asking her what was wrong, and what the note said, since I still could not read at that young an age. She seemed surprised that I was there; I guess she had no idea I had been watching her cry all that time.

She told me that everything was ok, that it was just grown-up stuff, and that there was nothing to worry about. Then she wiped away her tears and promptly made breakfast, as though nothing had ever happened. She even set a place on the table for Dad.

It wouldn't be until later that Mama would tell me what had really happened. That Dad had left all of us, and wasn't coming back.

I remember the cheery glow of the morning sun filtering through the kitchen window that morning, shining against the sad look on Mama's face. Never before had I seen such sorrow in such a cheery atmosphere.

Never again did I want to see Mama look so sad as she did on that day. I vowed, at that tender young age, to do everything in my power to keep Mom happy.

None of us ever saw Dad again.

Later, I found my heroes in the latest, greatest soccer players, and in the characters of the manga that my friends and I would swap during school.

My two favorites were Naruto and Monkey D. Luffy. My friends liked them because of their awesome, super-cool abilities and how they managed to kick so much butt.

I liked them because no matter how dire the situation, no matter how lost the cause, no matter how hopeless things seemed, they continued to fight with smile and spunk, and always managed to spread that positive attitude to everyone around them.

I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be just like them. Then maybe I would have somehow figured out how to keep Dad from leaving. I would have somehow stopped the sadness, so that Mama wouldn't have to cry over him anymore.

Nee-chan didn't have heroes. She had the phone, which she used constantly to talk about stupid girl stuff with her friends. She had magazines with pictures of glammed-up girls her age all over 'em in so-called trendy clothes. She had all of those girly things that she shared with her friends. And she had her homework, which was what kept her busy whenever she wasn't acting like a typical girl.

Sometimes I'd wonder if she was afraid to keep herself from being busy, as though if she had one moment to herself in the house, she'd think of Dad, and be saddened.

Why did Dad leave us, anyway, and cause so much heartache? Was it because of me?

Then I met my first real-life hero. Like with Dad, his skin and eyes also glowed against the sun rising brightly behind him. His sword, the coolest and largest-looking thing I've ever seen, glinted confidently over his shoulder. After all that fighting the night before, and the yelling at Nee-chan, he still managed to stand so tall, so proud, with such a confident smirk on his face. Nothing seemed to phase this guy's confidence. He looked and acted as though he had come straight out of the pages of one of my mangas.

Inu-nii-chan, therefore, became my new hero.

He could do no wrong in my eyes. Everything he did, from eating, to talking, to handling his sword, to talking with Nee-chan seemed so cool. I wanted to do everything that he did, like he did. And in return he allowed me to show him all the things about our world that he didn't know about in his.

I wanted so badly to brag to my friends about having a real-live hero come to my house from time to time. I wanted to boast about all the time I've spent with this hero, and of how much we've taught each other about our different worlds. But I knew that Inu-nii-chan and Nee-chan would not approve of everyone knowing about him. That, and, he did seem a bit strange at times, especially whenever he would hit the floor every time Nee-chan would scream, "Osuwari!" But mostly, secretly, I wanted to keep my hero all to myself. I was afraid that if everyone else knew about him and wanted to be his friend like I was, that somehow Inu-nii-san would leave me, just like Father had.

I never told anyone this, of course. I didn't want to seem weak and overly sentimental. After all, I had to act tough to protect my mom and the rest of the family, to take over Dad's place.

"Ya know, Inu-nii-chan," I commented one quiet evening in the living room while he watched me play a video game. Nee-chan was up doing homework, Mama was cleaning up the temple for the night, and Jii-chan was out chanting or praying or doing who-knows-what again. "I want to grow up to be just like you."

Silence filled the room. I expected Inu-nii-chan to be proud our touched or flattered or _something_ over the comment, to ruffle my hair and let out a gruff "Feh!" in that affectionate way that he does whenever he wants to say something nice but is too proud to. But instead, I received nothing but thick, awkward silence.

I turned, wondering if there was something wrong, and met Inu-nii-chan's penetrating gaze. He looked solemn, not at all flattered or happy. In fact, he looked almost..._angry_ at me.

"Don't go spoutin' off shit you don't mean," he snapped.

My mouth almost fell open. I wanted to compliment Inu-nii-chan, but instead I somehow insulted him. I stared at him, confused, trying to figure him out. I could hear my video game character get pulverized by the enemy. I didn't care. "Wha--"

"--_Never_ say that again," he continued, standing up with a huff. "You don't know how good you've got it, how lucky you are to lead the life that you do. Don't curse yourself by wanting to lead a life like mine. If anything, you should strive to be more like your sister. _She's_ the one you should _really_ look up to."

And with that, he left the room.

I stared after him, my mind reeling over what had just happened. Be more like my sister? I was absolutely perplexed over this. Why in the world would I want to be more like Nee-chan? I mean, she was a _girl_. What could possibly be so exciting about that?

I shut off my game and headed to bed, Inu-nii-chan's words ringing over and over again in my head for the rest of the night.

- - - -

For the next several weeks, I mulled over what Inu-nii-chan had said, wondering what he meant about not wanting to be like him and why I should be more like Nee-chan. I studied her a lot in the days that she was actually here. I did notice that she toiled more and more over her homework and less with her friends, but other than that difference, she seemed like the same old Nee-chan to me. She still enjoyed hogging the bathroom at the worst opportune times to take her girly baths, she still enjoyed talking on the phone with her friends, and she still enjoyed watching TV and reading those girly magazines. Mind you, she did all of these less and less, considering that homework seemed to take up most of her time, but otherwise...

What exactly did she do in Inu-nii-san's world, anyway? She would tell us awesome stories about how she and her friends would fight monsters and wander the lands. I could totally see Inu-nii-chan slicing these monsters to bits without so much as losing his breath. After all, that's what heroes do. But I could not see Nee-chan fighting alongside him, killing just as many monsters. I could totally see her yelling and screaming at Inu-nii-chan for being so reckless, but actually _fighting_?...No.

But there must be something about Nee-chan that I was missing--something that someone wasn't telling me about. After all, why would Inu-nii-chan have said those things about her that one night? I trusted his word; he was never the type that came across to me as a liar.

Mama one evening, while working to adjust her bike for Nee-chan after she wrecked hers, suggested that I help and support Kagome whenever I could. I obeyed, mostly because it was Mama that asked this of me, and I would do anything to help her out and make her happy. That, and I felt that it was a good way to help me get closer to what Inu-nii-chan was trying to say about Nee-chan.

- - - -

It was a very rainy late summer night. Nee-chan was back again, this time without Inu-nii-chan. This would happen from time to time; none of us would ask questions, but we all had a rough idea of the situation, considering that these were the times that Nee-chan would return in an especially cranky mood.

We were all quietly eating dinner, listening to the rain pound against the house and partaking in idle chitchat about our days. Nee-chan was not with us. She had pushed around her food for a while, nibbling here and there, and then decided to leave for her room. None of us made it a big deal, but we all knew that it was on each other's minds.

After finishing my plate, I excused myself and headed toward my room. On the way there, I passed by the door to Nee-chan's room. It was wide-open, showing a clear view of her desk, where she usually was at this time of day.

My side-ways glance met with an empty desk chair.

I paused, popping my head through the doorway to see if Nee-chan was perhaps reading on her bed.

The bed looked untouched, still made.

Nee-chan was not in her room.

Puzzled, I wandered in, wondering where she could be. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary--textbooks, paper, magazines, that giant backpack she always carries around now...

I looked out of her window, which overlooked the back section of the temple grounds. It was there that I spotted Nee-chan.

She was soaking wet, still in her school uniform, standing in the middle of the grounds with a bow and arrows.

Seeing her with a bow and arrows was nothing strange, different, or alarming to anyone of us in this family. We knew that this was how she protected herself while in Inu-nii-san's world. However, after showing us once how well she could use it, none of us could understand _how_ she could protect herself, much less anything else, with the skills she had.

The girl had no sense of aim, and all of her arrows flew in random directions. After ducking for cover, I had laughed at her, joking about how much she sucked. Mama scolded me for it later, but the comment had served its purpose--it had annoyed my big sister.

She stood there now, arrow knocked on the bowstring, in a perfect, straight side-ways stance, looking to aim at a nearby tree. The pounding rain did not seem to alter her focus, her concentration locked on the target in front of her. I watched, totally expecting her arrow to fly out to who-knows-where. But instead, her arm and hand remained very steady as her fingers released the arrow, and it soared, in a perfectly straight line, directly to the tree, the arrowhead sinking solidly into it.

I gawked, stared, scarcely believing what I was seeing. Nee-chan had managed to hit her target!

I watched again as, with her same stoic, flawless stance as before, knocked another arrow into place, aimed and fired. This arrow also sank into the tree, immediately next to the first one, with barely any room between them.

However, I was more focused on her fingers. As the string slipped away from her fingertips, tiny droplets of blood scattered about with the rainwater from the bowstring. I realized that her fingers were bleeding.

How long and how hard had she been practicing on this?

I studied Nee-chan's face, wondering what could possibly drive her to practice to the point where her fingers would go raw. And that's when I realized why Nee-chan decided to train out here in the pouring rain.

She was crying.

It was hard to tell, mind you, but I've lived with Nee-chan long enough to tell when she was crying, even in the rain.

I stepped away from the window and headed back to my bedroom, lost in thought. Since when did Nee-chan get so good with the bow? Why was she crying? Before I had always seen her as just a girl, and an annoying sister, who occasionally got to go somewhere else for a while. Now I realized that perhaps she was so much more than that...perhaps she had worries and cares and burdens beyond school and social life.

But I do know one thing for sure. Even without any light to illuminate her, even without some massive, super-cool sword, she looked so very, very cool standing out there in that rain with the bow and arrows. My sister. Looking as cool as any hero I've known. How'd that happen?

- - - -

I could not sleep. My mind kept mulling over Nee-chan out in the rain. I glanced at the clock. 3 a.m. I had school tomorrow, a massive test, and intense soccer training with my friends after school. If I didn't get some sleep soon, I'd be a walking zombie. Jii-chan would have to call the school and tell them that I was sick, maybe with something outrageous like what he does with Nee-chan.

I needed to get these nagging thoughts out of my mind.

I rolled my head to the side, and noticed the light seeping through from under my door. Nee-chan was awake.

Sighing, I climbed out of bed and stepped out of the room. I quietly padded over to Nee-chan's room. Her door was wide open, and she sat in her chair, in front of her desk, hunched over homework. She looked dry and comfortable, in her pajamas. She looked...normal, a far cry from the Nee-chan I spied earlier that evening.

"Souta," she called, sounding like her usual, annoyed self, "go back to bed. I'm just finishing some homework, and you're distracting me."

I stood my ground, wanting desperately to talk with her. I wanted to find out what was really going on with her life, what she really did in Inu-nii-chan's world, what she really thought of?

"Souta..."

"Do you..." I swallowed. "Do you miss Dad?"

Nee-chan put down her pencil and just sat there for a moment. Then she slowly turned in her chair to look at me. She looked like the same old Nee-chan to me, but the way she stared...it was like how Mama stared at me whenever she was worried about something. "Is that what has been keeping you up?"

No, not really. I bit my lip and entered the room. Nee-chan didn't protest. I felt scared and overwhelmed at the same time to talk about my current feelings, and stupid for not knowing how to say it all right...but all I could do was go by instinct at this point. "It's just...I know that we're a happy family--you, me, Mama, Jii-chan, and Buyo." The cat sat on the middle of Nee-chan's bed, purring, without a care in the world. I sat down next to him, petting him as I continued. "But everyone once in a while...every once in a while, I can hear Mama crying in her room, and I just feel...I feel as though I'm not doing enough to make her happier, that I should be doing _something_ more around here, that..."

"Souta."

Nee-chan scooted out of her chair and sat down next to me on the bed. She looked me square in the eye for a moment, awe, surprise, and maybe even a little respect etched in her face. Then she hugged me.

"Souta, you're doing plenty around here," she said after releasing me.

"Plenty?" I looked at her, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you keep Mama company whenever she is lonely, and you're always looking out for her best interest. You make Jii-chan feel important and special by being so patient with him and all of his..._ideas_. And Buyo here...he couldn't ask for a better caregiver. You make sure he has everything he needs. And I...I know that you do your very best to take care of the family. I know that whenever I'm gone, my family is safe, which makes all that I do in the Sengoku Jidai a little easier to handle."

Wow! Compliments, from Nee-chan! Usually she would complain about how I'd always be in her way, always made her late, and always bugged her. But this... I could only stare, stunned and flattered beyond all belief. "You really think all of that about me?"

Nee-chan smiled, and nodded her head. "Of course I do, silly! You're what keeps this family together, keeps everyone in it strong. Already you've done so much more than Dad ever did, or could."

I stared at my lap, suddenly feeling bashful. Never had I thought of myself that way. And to have Nee-chan say all those things about me... did the rest of the family think I was that important?

I glanced over at Nee-chan's hands, and to her fingertips. They were red and swollen, and looked pretty sore. I glanced up to the small jar on Nee-chan's desk, the one that contained the fragments of the Shikon no Tama. I remembered being chased by that mask thing, and how Nee-chan went through great lengths to make sure that I was safe. I had been so focused on the coolness of Inu-nii-chan that I hadn't thought about all the heroic things Nee-chan had done. Why didn't I think of them before? Without her, I would have been dead long before Inu-nii-chan had a chance to save me.

"It must be scary, fighting all of those monsters in Inu-nii-san's world."

"Sometimes it is," Nee-chan agreed, "but the support of Inuyasha and the others gives me the courage to fight."

"Why do you even do it? Why do you go away so long, and risk your life so much for those glass pieces?"

Nee-chan looked away, her gaze suddenly distant. "It was my fault that the Shikon-no-Tama shattered in the first place. I've created so much danger and chaos to Inuyasha's world because of that, so it is only fair that I set things right. It is my responsibility. That's why I do it."

Responsibility. I seemed to be learning a lot about that word lately.

To have Nee-chan say such heroic, grown-up things was like living in another world. Not once did she mention something girly, not once did she whine or complain about something. It was as though she were some old, wise dude in a girl's body. She had changed so much, and became so cool lately. Why didn't I notice before?

I stood up, yawned, stretched, and headed for the door. "I'm heading to bed now," I announced. "I'm tired."

I could hear Nee-chan sigh behind me. "I wish I could sleep. I'm sooo behind on my math homework, it's not even funny."

"Good night, Nee-chan."

"Good night, Souta."

"Oh!" I paused right before disappearing behind the doorway. I almost forgot! "Inu-nii-chan said that I should look up to you more, to be more like you."

Nee-chan gawked at me for a moment before slouching in her spot and looking away again. I could see a light blush spreading across her cheeks. "Inuyasha said that, did he?"

I grinned. I had a feeling that Nee-chan wasn't going to get her homework done tonight. "Yup!"

He said all of that for a good reason, too. Nee-chan was far more than just a big sister. She was a courageous person that put others before herself, and loved her family and friends very much. A hero, like Naruto and Monkey D. Luffy.

I went back to bed feeling a little bit wiser that night. Inu-nii-san was right that I should look up to Nee-chan more. But I think that someone else deserves a bit more credit...me. Even though I'm just a soccer loving, video-game playing boy, Nee-chan, a hero herself, was proud of me. And if _she_ was proud of me, the rest of the family was bound to be.

I learned that one doesn't necessarily need special powers, awesome fighting skills, or magical weapons to be a hero. An ordinary kid just like me could be one, too. So long as I was a hero in my family's eyes, that was all I needed to feel that I was doing my part. That was all I needed to feel like a hero.


End file.
